


Firestone

by themillersdaughtersmistress



Series: firestone [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Regulus Black, Black Family (Harry Potter) - Freeform, Black Hermione Granger, Black family feels, Canon Divergence - Post-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Character(s) of Color, Disability, Drarry pre-slash, Family, Female Character of Color, In fact everything JKR has said outside of the seven published books can kiss my ass, Indian Harry Potter, Lesbian Character of Color, Multi, Nightmares, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Not Canon Compliant - Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Not Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Original Black Characters - Freeform, Plot, Redemption, Regulus Black Lives, Secret Identity, Sirius Black Lives, but it’s going to kick up a lot more in the sequels so I’m tagging it now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2019-11-13 02:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18023267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themillersdaughtersmistress/pseuds/themillersdaughtersmistress
Summary: Regulus Black is alive and well, and was living happily in America  through the first four books, after destroying the locket Horcrux. Voldemort's summoning reached even him, though, and he returns duty-bound to England to finish what he started in 1979.—“He barely heard Eric’s tentative “Sir?” as his senses whited out. The weakness from before grew to full dizziness and throbbing. His tongue felt like it had grown three sizes. ‘And now, we shall see…’ hissed in his ears, rattled through his brain, and pain shot up a non-existent left arm. He fell to his knees with a shout, and then onto his side. He vaguely heard the squeak and clatter of a chair falling on it’s side, or Eric’s shout of “Professor?! Hey, somebody, help!” His senses were filled with the smell of grave dirt, with the feel of dead grass under his bare feet, and the smell of blood—so fresh, and crisp, now that he finally had nostrils again….”





	1. Muggle Immersion

**Author's Note:**

> A few things: 
> 
> One, you'll notice in the tags I said I'm disregarding most everything outside of the canon of the first seven books. That's partially because there's quite a few things I'm not happy with out of pottermore's pages and the fb movies, both with the strength of their writing and representation-wise. As such, I don't have as strong a memory of either, and the magic didn't capture me the same way as, say, Harry's first flight in PS. 
> 
> Second, expect inconsistencies, since I'm doing this mostly for fun outside of my "real" job, and thus don't have a lot of time to fact check some of the smaller details. I'd like to think I have enough knowledge left over from when I was an absolute die-hard Harry Potter fan, but only time will tell! 
> 
> And, lastly, if you recognize this work, it’s because I’d had it published previously! I liked the premise, but because of a low response and because I wasn’t satisfied with the writing direction (for one, there was a lot more exposition just stated "at the camera" as it were), I took it down to rework it! Hopefully it's improved somewhat.
> 
> Take two...and...action!

The world is an ever changing place—mountains fall, desserts grow and shrink, empires rise and fall. Oceans, the deep of them if not their borders, are one of the few unchanging things. The waves of the ocean were, are, and always will be a stunning teal blue—

Except one particular spot, that liked to glint bright orange, from time to time.

Sailors disagreed where exactly this spot was (“In the Bermuda Triangle!” “No, I saw it up by Alaska!” “It's off the coast of Spain, swear on me mum!”) but they all agreed it exists. All of these sailors are muggles, though, and thus couldn’t truly see where the barrier was, or what it held.

Of course, very few wizards could truly see these things, either.

The orange glint is the hiding place of a very special school of witchcraft, one built when all others failed the original students, and when muggles hunted the witches for their magic—in addition to being escaped slaves. Wizards of the Americas agreed: they had no reason to interfere in the affairs of muggles, and so the witches were on their own.

They continued to be on their own, for centuries, even as laws were passed and freedoms granted. They continued to be on their own, as other schools, both wizarding and muggle, were built around them. They deliberately hid themselves further, in wards and oaths of secrecy to protect the school’s location, having a select few allowed in to each class: those most powerful, and those that were descended from those first runaways, both in blood and in spirit.

And so it stayed, until late in December of 1979.

And so it stayed, until a young girl and her friend were out sailing to gather potions ingredients from the ocean, and saw a bloodied young man caught in the wards, barely alive and with undead monsters clawing at the wards around him.

And so it stayed, until the young girl saved the young man’s life.

And so our story begins.

***

_“…and though it burns me and it turns me into ashes,_

_my whole world crashes without your kiss of fire…”_

The sun was high in the sky when Zatana de Bleu woke, warming every inch of bare brown skin not covered by the sheets. She scrunched her eyes tighter together, letting out a jaw-cracking yawn as the aches from the night before slowly registered. Carefully, she opened her eyes to the glare of the sun. By the door, two outer dress robes lay, hastily cast off. Other clothes wound their way around the room in a lazy trail. A satin sock curled under the stubby leg of a wardrobe; a piece of a garter hung from the edge of a massive formal portrait.

As she looked around, Zatana frowned; there was one piece that was missing from the trail. As she frowned, singing rose from another part of the house, along with the sounds of D.C. just waking up, and her frown cleared. She climbed slowly out of the bed. Gingerly, she climbed out of bed and grabbed her robe from the wardrobe. Zatana followed the sound of the singing.

The sunlight followed her, down the hall and refracted through the balcony railing, meeting its brother rays as she climbed down the stairs. The foyer was sparkling in it’s cleanliness, and Zatana’s frown came back, even as the volume of the singing grew again. Her home was usually clean-ish, but the nature of the jobs of the two occupants meant there was rarely time to clean it themselves, and Zatana (and, to be fair, the other occupant) drew a hard line at house-elves. Last night, there has been at least a thin layer of dust on the metals of the room, and toys they’d meant to send back to Zatana’s niece sat as they had for weeks, since the last time said niece had visited.

Zatana peeked into the first room off the foyer—the kitchen. The picture that greeted her nearly made her jaw drop. Regulus Black, the other occupant of the house and husband in all but law, twirled around the kitchen, bellowing lyrics louder than the record player puttering along dutifully in the corner. He was dressed for the day already, pressed high-waisted pants and black silk vest and white collar shirt, his right hand dangling the pitcher of a blender over two plates and pouring out hollandaise over two technically flawless eggs benedict. His other arm—the one who’s original flesh was missing, which had a specially crafted magical aide that had been what was missing from the pile in their bedroom—balanced a plate of fruit and cheese. He twirled again, and spotted her finally. A wide smile split across his face, stretching the scars on his face in such a familiar way it made her heart hurt. Quickly, he set down the pitcher, picked up the plates, and moved them to the dining table with a jaunty spin of porcelain.

She smiled at him, and full on laughed when he swooped her up in his arms, one of them silver and ghostly marble, pulling her into his dance as he sung to the vinyl playing. “Give me your lips, the lips you only let me borrow,” he bellowed, twirling her and dipping her amid shrieks of laughter, “love me tonight and let the devil take tomorrow!”

He let her upright, and she gasped. “Bee! What's gotten into you?” she asked breathlessly, sliding into her usual seat at the table. He slid into the seat across from her, setting two drinks on the table and finally reaching up to take the black bands from around what remained of his left bicep. The prosthetic disappeared into the bands immediately, and he set it on the table. “You had that on all last night, as well. Your nerves aren’t stinging? Even a little?”

“No,” he answered, smiling and sprawling out in his chair. “I feel fine. I’ve felt fine for nearly a week now.”

Zatana pushed her fork into the food in front of her, and brought it to her mouth slowly. It was as delicious as it looked, and unease grew in her stomach. “An entire week?” she asked lightly.

Regulus nodded. “I think that those charms Ivy got me are really helping,” he told her. Zatana hummed, and refrained from mentioning the fact that their ward had been dubious about whether the charms even had magic, let alone would work as they said. The girl had found it on one of her many expeditions to the more inaccessible parts of the country, in search of potions masters from different backgrounds to learn from for a time. This home was the longest Ivy had ever stayed in one place—eight years, just about—and giving her mentor and father-figure something that could as easily kill him as cure him was not something she'd felt comfortable with. She and Zatana had agreed, though: Regulus—the man Ivy had trusted above everyone else within a day, the man who’d taken her in within a week—was in immeasurable increasing pain, and had been for months. Any effort to alleviate that was worth it.

“Then you think you’ll be ready for your exams today?” she asked, mentally running through all the books she had on curse wounds, and any known curse cases who had matching symptoms, which had up and disappeared on their own. The latter list was worryingly short.

“Of course,” Regulus said, launching into a detailed account of everything his students had been doing to prepare, and this time his excitement and energy wasn’t suspicious at all. As Bennett de Bleu, Muggle Immersion professor at the Slintec Academy of the Occult in West Virginia, Regulus shined. She wondered how anyone who’d known him as a child thought he could be anything other than a teacher. His class was a magic all it’s own for students who hated school, for students who had no experience with muggles at all. He was known for his teaching ability throughout all of North America’s magical world, and it broke her to watch him have to turn down opportunity after opportunity because it would be too easy to reveal his true identity through it.

Zatana watched him, getting lost in his voice. There were two people in the world she would kill for without hesitation—Ivy, their daughter in all but legality, and Regulus himself. He’d shown up caught in the wards of her school—something that should be impossible for anyone not invited—and Zatana had saved his life against the exasperated advice of her closest friend. His wounds had been extensive, and Zatana had been planning to commission the Headmistress for the chance to work on them just to help with her certification in healing curse wounds anyway, but he’d woken up. He’d woken up, and he stumbled through a story about familial responsibility and unjust prejudices and undoing the damage he’d done—while half gone on pain potions and convinced she was an angel, to be begged for one last day on earth to help those he felt needed it—and Zatana knew there would be no other. Not for her. There were few men she knew of who would, when in the position he’d been in, attempt to kill You-Know-Who. There were even fewer who could succeed, even a little.

“…and I’m not sure Mera really understood the ‘intricate example’ portion of the presentation grade, but—” He glanced at the clock. “Merlin! I’m going to be late. I’ll see you when I get home, darling; love you!” He shot up, grabbing his briefcase and kissing her on the forehead, then bounded out the door. A marked difference from the man he’d been in months prior.

Zatana waited until his footsteps faded, and then summoned three books from her personal study. They opened to the pages she’d had bookmarked since she was fifteen, going over them again and again since last December. He’d been consistently sick in some way since then, and in the two months leading up to the past week, Regulus had barely been able to get out of bed with how lethargic he’d been. His magical core, when examined, had barely been there, and his scars had stood out against unnaturally pale skin. Zatana had even gotten the occasional letter from his students, asking if their favorite teacher was actually okay.

She leaned over the books, pressing her face close as if that would help her find information that apparently wasn’t there. There was every chance that this week—this past twenty-four hours—was a last surge of energy before his body gave out completely. The magical wounds Regulus had come to her with—the Dark Mark, the scars of that horrible necklace, Inferi attack marks—were uniquely creative, and it had taken every resource she’d had to make him okay when her fifteen-year-old self had rescued him. She’d nearly died with him that time, and she didn’t even know him that well, yet. She couldn’t handle it if he wasn’t alright this time—she _couldn’t_.

***

Exam Day for his Muggle Immersion course was one of Regulus’ favorite days of the year. More than any birthdays or Christmases (There were a few Valentine’s Days he and Zatana had decided to make special that probably tied), this was the day of the year that made his heart soar. As a recently-declared-dead young man, he’d found it overwhelming learning how to navigate the Muggle world. While a part of that had been the prejudices he’d been raised with, a part of that had been how ill equipped wizards were in general to interact with the Muggle world. First he’d found it annoying, then genuinely frustrating, and then finally—after Zatana had kicked him out of bed for the third time for ranting well into the night about it—enraging enough to actually do something about it.

Zatana’s mother and sisters all had high positions in MCUSA—though Zatana’s second oldest sister, Evangeline, frequently skirted legality in hers—and he’d met with Senator Cordelia de Bleu to stumble through asking her about how to improve wizards understanding of Muggles. The matriarch was still deathly intimidating even after she’d supposedly given her blessing to him and her daughter’s relationship: Magical Congress robes sharply pressed and steel gray dreds pinned in an even sharper bun. She’d given him a long, unreadable look—nearly a minute, he swore—before asking how he’d felt about the field of education. He’d gaped at her. Asked if she was serious. She’d slammed a thick folder of proposals down in front of him. All of them related to how MCUSA had been slowly cutting any and all academic resources related to their parallel culture, almost beat for beat matching how the Dark Lord’s supporters had gutted funding for Hogwart’s Muggle Studies program and the matched funding going for homeschooling wizards.

“The way to a society is through their children,” she’d said simply. “They will trust you, and in turn, you make them trust what their parents fear.”

He’d fallen into teaching like a duck into water, and hadn’t looked back.

Teaching was _fun_ in a way he hadn’t expected. Seeing a student’s eyes light up when they took in interesting information, or their fervored thanks when he’d helped them through a frustrating spot—there was nothing better, he’d found. Even better was expanding his own knowledge outside the bubble of magic, and helping his students do the same. He was paid as an assistant professor for Slintec, both because that was as high as he could go without an extensive background check and because he only taught about half of his own class.

The other half—what he considered the important half—was the students learning from people who actually knew what they were talking about, in his opinion: muggleborn mages with their Master certifications, Muggle parents or siblings or anyone who he could get ward permissions for, who specialized in either teaching or some muggle field and who were gracious enough to lend their time, field trips to museums and amusement parks and anything in between, joint discussion classes with children of muggle government officials (and sometimes the official themselves) who needed to learn about magic as much as young mages needed to learn about muggle things. Though he usually taught all years, in the last two, Slintec had hired a co-professor: a young witch from Texas named Penelope Guerrero. This had allowed him to focus more on the fifth to seventh years—the ones more likely to either bow to or outright buck their parent’s viewpoint—but the Exam was the brainchild of the both of them.

The Exam was a prompt given to the seventh years at the beginning of their final year, which they had to answer with a half-hour presentation near the end of June: pick a thing or idea that exists in both the wizarding and muggle world, and either prove or disprove a solid connection between each side of existence. The students had access to the entire school library, unrestricted, and could request a class trip to anywhere in the southeast of the United States as long as they gave a two week notice.

This year his students had performed brilliantly. They were a class of twelve—big for any class involving muggles—so could cram all of their presentations into one day, as long as they started early, and be done by four. At the top of the morning, he’d actually been nervous, thinking about how they were going to cram presentations from everything from boxing to dance to a parallel theory in physics and runes into one day. Regulus glanced at his watch. The second hand clicked into the position for four-fifteen, and he smiled faintly. _Not bad, Black_ , he thought. Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped. He’d thought the classroom was clear; he’d taken it for granted that everyone would rush out the door with their massive projects (Mera had surprised him, not only remembering an example for a theory of connection between a parallel fashion trend, but making the two models’ clothes change in sync with her speech without a single wave of her wand on the actual day).

He turned. “Eric?” he asked in shock, and the boy shifted from foot to foot with nerves. Eric Mason was a tall boy, a shock of blond curls atop a warm brown face. His father, a well known senator named Absylon Mason, reminded Regulus entirely too much of Lucius Malfoy for comfort. He was just as white, family just as old, and twice as openly brutal as Lucius, with not a care for actual propriety or Lucius’ veneer of sophistication. Cordelia, when plied with enough wine, ranted about his presence in Congress for hours, interjected occasionally with Evangeline’s offers to assassinate the man. Eric was the son he’d not spoken a word about until said son made state news as one of the most talented Charms students in a century. After Absylon had butted in, Regulus had expected Eric to drop his class, but the usually-timid boy had matched his father’s stubbornness all the way to an Outstanding N.E.W.T. in Regulus’ class.

“Hiya, Professor de Bleu, sir,” Eric said, eyes firmly connected with a spot on Regulus’ tie. “You got time?”

Regulus blinked, and unfroze, motioning Eric over to take a seat in the rolltop in front of his own heavy wood desk. “Of course, Eric, always,” he said. Eric sat on the edge of flimsy school-provided wood, and Regulus matched his seating, delicately carved oak digging into his backside. “So.”

“So,” Eric mimicked him, kicking his feet. He took a deep breath. “You know my mom was sick, right?” Regulus nodded. “Well, she got a lot better, in the last month or so. Like a miracle, really.” He chuckled in disbelief, and Regulus very deliberately bit his tongue. It was frowned upon to get involved in students lives, and usually he agreed, but what school board could fault him on mentioning an interesting terminal medical case to his wife, even if she happened to be an especially gifted Healer?

“That’s wonderful, Eric!” he finally exclaimed, when he was sure he wouldn’t say anything that would get them both in trouble.

“Yeah,” he nodded, smiling. “Yeah. Anyway, Senator—dad, Senator, dad, sir, he heard she was sick, and was offering to help. Only, he wanted me to choose one of the apprenticeships he’d lined up for me—ministry, legal, things like that. I didn’t…I didn’t really like them, sir, but if he was going to help my mom, why not, right?” He sighed again. Regulus went weak with the thought of how close the boy had come to being permanently under his father’s thumb. “Well, I don’t have to, now, and I don’t think he…cares about me besides getting my influence?” He said this casually, with a shrug, like it wouldn’t drive a lance through the heart of any sane being. “So, I don’t really have apprenticeships or training or nothing lined up besides those, really. I…I had a field I wanted to go into, but it’s sorta—I-I don’t—Professor, sir, do you take on apprentices?”

The weakness of Regulus’ spine grew, and his heart stopped, before it kicked into overdrive. A slow smile grew on his face. “Do I—yes!” he exclaimed. “Yes, yes! I mean, I haven’t taken on an apprentice before, and it would have to be different by nature than any other magical apprenticeship, but I think we could—” He stood up to offer Eric a hug—and stumbled.

He barely heard Eric’s tentative “Sir?” as his senses whited out. The weakness from before grew to full dizziness and throbbing. His tongue felt like it had grown three sizes. _‘And now, we shall see…’_ hissed in his ears, rattled through his brain, and pain shot up a non-existent left arm. He fell to his knees with a shout, and then onto his side. He vaguely heard the squeak and clatter of a chair falling on it’s side, or Eric’s shout of “Professor?! Hey, somebody, help!” His senses were filled with the smell of grave dirt, with the feel of dead grass under his bare feet, and the smell of blood—so fresh, and crisp, now that he finally had nostrils again….

_‘…now we shall know.’_

“Bee? Bee!” a woman’s panicked shout, and the familiar smell of citrus and rain and the faint alcoholic undertone all perfumes had. Hands pressed against his face, and on the unscarred side he could feel how hot and sweaty they were. “Don’t do this, Bee, come on…”

And with that, Regulus Black passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not too confident about this rework, if we’re being honest. I like the writing, but I’m not sure how it’ll land. Leave a review to tell me how you liked it!


	2. Black de Bleu

* * *

There is a thought, in most wizarding circles of the south: the de Bleu family is loyal to their blood above all else, to the point of recklessness or even insanity. They are often compared to the EnglishSacred Twenty-Eight, by those who have really never met either. Stories that reach almost legend circulate: daughters brought back from near death by their mothers, statelines crossed and chains broken to find lost brothers, laws of magic bent to breaking to aide cousins…

This is not true.

De Bleus are loyal to _family_ , and blood will have everything or nothing to do with it. People forget that Jane was not Penny’s birth mother, and she was the birth mother’s Healer long before she was Penny’s adopted guardian; they forget that Red and Jackie could only be proven cousins if you felt like tracing their lineage over five generations through the mess that was plantation record keeping; they forget that while Theodore and Christopher were indeed half-brothers, it was Theodore’s father and master that sold him three states over in the first place. De Bleus were loyal to family, and family meant those that were willing to move mountains for you unconditionally. It is something they, as a family, tend to admire in others as well.

This is important, because this trait is why Regulus Black was anything more than a science experiment to Zatana de Bleu.

More, and now everything, and the woman herself stared down at a scarred face and wondered what would happen to her world if everything died. The click of heels, then the tread of heavy boots, pulled at the edge of her consciousness, but she couldn’t bring herself to look away from Regulus’ unsconscious face. Her forearms supported her head as she slumped against his bed, only relatively in the chair beside it.

Her oldest sister’s scoff finally made her sluggishly turn her head. The tall, lighter-skinned woman stood leaning against the door, Magical Mysteries Division robes smoking faintly purple, and a faint look of exasperation on her face. “Stop moping,” Ashanti de Bleu told her, shoving off the doorframe and walking around to check the magical core moniter on nightstand opposite Zatana’s chair beside Regulus’ bed. “He’s fine; you’ve made _sure_ he’s fine, once again! He’ll wake up by the end of tomorrow at most. Honestly, he’s doing little more than sleeping in after exams.”

Zatana frowned, and opened her mouth to protest her sister’s trademark insensitivity, but the second person that entered after her sister. “Can I mope, then?” Auror Leah Ceasar demanded, striding into the private room in the hospital like it was her own living room and slumping into the couch in the corner. She waved around a copy of the Northeast Oracle. “Perfect proof that the British Ministry of Magic is full of shit, and no way to tell a single person in our DMLE!” The paper collapsed back to cover the woman’s face, and she groaned.

“What’s happened?” Zatana asked, shifting her gaze from Ceasar to Ashanti when Ceasar just groaned again.

“Apparently at the same time your man collapsed, the European Triwizard tournament went sideways,” she said, sitting delicately by Regulus’ right shoulder. “A boy died.”

Zatana shot up.

“And that fucking boy wonder of theirs said it was You-Know-Who that did it!” Ceasar shouted from under her newsprint blanket.

“What!” Zatana shrieked. There was only one English boy Ceasar, or any other wizard in the country for that matter, refered to without a name. The Boy-Who-Lived, the young Harry Potter, was a magical mystery Zatana would quite frankly love to get the chance to examine, and would have tried (like half her graduating class) to get his records to study if she’d had much looser morals about children’s privacy. The memory of the night he’d become the most famous boy in the world was burned into her memory. She’d been invited to a friend’s family dinner that night, for Diwali, and after all the food and lights she’d been invited to stay.

 _I’ve Healed countless dumb Aurors who splinched themselves trying to get home exhausted_ , Diya had insisted, pushing Zatana into a bed and ignoring her polite protestation. _Don’t be an idiot, Zee! Stay and rest, and we’ll send you on your way in the morning with more leftovers than you can carry._

She’d woken up to screaming, and crying, and Diya holding up her younger sister while barely able to stand herself. James Potter had friends even across the Atlantic, and while they’d only met twice, Diya would chatter on endlessly after each visit about the brave Indian Auror from England. Zatana hadn’t said anything then, but she’d found it deeply, bitterly ironic that the man had been killed by such darkness during the very celebration meant to celebrate light’s triumph over such things.

“Allegedly,” Ashanti snapped, drawing Zatana out of her thoughts.

“There’s no allegedly about it!” Ceasar said, snapping to a sitting position and tossing the newspaper aside. Her pale face was flushed red in anger. “Zatana said her man’s injuries are from that thing that was on his left arm, and who’s the only one who has access to it?”

“Him and every other idiot who took that Mark!” Zatana looked at her sister’s face; she wasn’t just angry—she was scared. “It doesn’t have to be a man nearly fifteen years dead!”

“It is,” rumbled a new voice, low and raspy, and Zatana rushed back to Regulus’ side.

“Bee!” she cried, putting one hand on his neck and entwining the other with his right. Regulus leaned up into the kiss she gave him, and then collapsed back, exhausted from just that. He was glowing still, though, grinning up at her like nothing was wrong.

“See! He agrees!” Ceasar said, standing and waving the newspaper in Regulus’ direction.

“He was just unconscious for nearly a full day!” Ashanti countered. “He cannot—”

“ _He_ can hear you,” Regulus interrupted pointedly. “And I know what I felt: the Dark Lord has come again, somehow.” He spoke the last to Zatana, the both of them knowing why that was impossible: a small, broken necklace at the bottom of Regulus’ travel trunk, permanently destroyed with Zatana’s aid only a year after he’d gotten caught in Ashbone School of Witchcraft’s wards, when he’d still been in a wheelchair half the time. Even with magic, injuries as extensive as his had been took time to heal, and the patient never truly recovered. On bad days, Regulus still walked with a limp from the scar from where one Inferi had tried to take his entire calf muscle out.

“Well, I think the next steps are clear,” Ceasar said. “If you tell me where your daughter’s gone off to this time, I can get a couple of my men who don’t ask questions to escort her back here within twenty-four hours.”

“Good,” Zatana said, and she felt the motion as Regulus nodded alongside her. Regulus continued for her: “Get her here, but don’t alarm her or your men. We don’t need rumors when even we don’t have concrete facts right now.”

Cold dread was starting to eat at her, now that Regulus wasn’t in danger of dying in his sleep. Her mother, a witch, and her father, a muggle, had raised her sheltered in both worlds, and Regulus’ injuries were the first time she’d seen anything more than a nasty gash in anything other than a textbook. She’d been fifteen at the time, in her first year at Ashbone—a school that now was only to prep students for their mastery training in a subject, or a place for that student to train outright—and the sight had nearly rolled her stomach.

It had been her thesis—the possibility of connecting magical prosthetics _through_ scar tissue and recconnect the nerves, instead of just having it sit on top of skin and magically mimic that connection—that had saved him, but she hadn’t been able to even be a part of the team healing him until older students and experienced Healers had healed the worst of his injuries. She’d had nightmares about those injuries for a month, either just of the unconscious boy in their Hospital Wing or of her family somehow sustaining those injuries. She had a feeling those nightmares would be returning, now, with Ivy added to the roster of people who could be hurt by this killer.

“I’ll get started on it, then,” Ceasar said, and gave them a mocking salute as she rushed out the door.

Ashanti looked between them. She’d come now to act as Zatana’s Assistant Healer, but still had her own job and family to get back to. Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t-” she jabbed a finger at Regulus, and then Zatana. “-do anything stupid.” And then she swept out of the room after Ceasar.

Regulus waited until her footsteps faded before speaking. “I think that might be impossible, don’t you?” he muttered.

“Agreed,” Zatana answered, wheels turning in her head as she went over warding and protection spells, playing with his fingers. “It will be impossible to hide the fact that your English family is being moved, but if we move quickly and up the wards on, say, the summer vacation house, we can hide where they’re moving _to_. We’d also have to get you formally disowned, so your line doesn’t continue to appear and update on anyone else’s Pureblood tree. It’ll be dangerous to sneak into the British archives, but I think me and Evangeline can manage it, and the bright side of that would be that you can finally officially adopt—”

“Zee.” She blinked, and looked at him. Took in the expression on his face.

“No,” she said immediately, shooting up into a sitting position again and glaring at him. She crossed her arms. “ _No,_ Regulus, _absolutely_ no!”

“There’s no other way!” he said, shifting like he wanted to get up and pace. “And I have a duty to—”

“He was an ocean away!” Zatana cried. “Thousands of miles and you can’t even stand! _This_ when he didn’t even know that he attacking you!”

“No one else collapsed!” Regulus protested. “I saw parts of their initial meeting when I was unconscious. It was probably just the complexity of the Mark, and the fact that was so intertwined with my magical core, that the fifteen year old you missed taking a piece out! It could have amplified the affects of forced summoning without everything else that was entwined around it to do damage control. And you rememdied that today, right?” Zatana scoffed. They’d been together long enough to both know that of course she had. “There you are,” he contineud. “I’ll be fine the next time he does that, and he’ll never even know I’m alive.”

“How long do you expect that alive status to last if you go directly after him?” Zatana demanded. “Your life would be taken, or mine, or-or Ivy’s, Regulus! Our daughter, _your_ daughter! You cannot honestly say there’s no chance he wouldn’t find out about what your doing when you go to actively hunt him!”

“There was no guaruntee he wouldn’t find me here either!” Regulus fired back. “There was always the chance that he could find me if he tried hard enough, even if a lot of magical files declared me dead the second I was hidden by your wards. I only disappeared; he never found my body, and if he is even a fraction more unhinged than when I was last in his presence, then he will want to chase down every loose end, no matter how impossible. Ivy would be in danger that way, still, and then we wouldn’t even have a warning. And, Zee. Zatana.”

Zatana looked up, surprised to find her eyes blurry with tears. When had that happened? “I can’t abandon my family to him,” he said softly, reaching over and taking her hand again. “Either side.” Zatana finally sighed, and nodded.

“Okay,” she said, and then louder: “Okay. I will let you go on one condition.”

“Anything,” he said immediately. “Anything you want.”

She grinned through tears. “I get to fight by your side. I get to come with you.”

***

**Eight Years Ago**

“Well, if you’re sure,” Regulus started, shifting from foot to foot. Zatana smiled down at him, standing on a higher step of the wide staircase leading up to the building for the Black Alliance of Sorcerers and Thaumaturgists, the word _BAST_  letttered in gold over the massive double doors. Witches in elaborate hairstyles and warlocks in towering hats hustled arround them, unconcerned with the couple.

“I have testified before Bast before,” she told him, smiling indulgently, as if she hadn’t been tearing her hair out not twelve hours before while finishing writing her statement. “Besides, if MCUSA’s interns are to be believed, it’s a simple matter.”

The “simple matter” was this: muggleborn wix appearing on school registries, exactly on their eleventh birthdays, but when school officials went to give their guardian the run down on magic, there was no child fitting their description there. The working theory was that there was something wrong with MCUSA’s archives and their ability to detect latent magic. Recalibrating an ancient and finnicky massive roll of paper was much more than simple, but it _was_ straightforward enough.

If one didn’t take into account that this had only been happening to _black_ muggleborn wix.

The first couple of cases hadn’t even been officially logged, and hadn’t that news sent his mother-in-law into a towering rage. There were ten cases so far, spread over seven states and three schools. The Galraine Finishing School’s Headmistress, all the way in New York, had been the one to point out the pattern. Headmistress Greytwig had also pointed out that this was happening in orphanages and foster homes, ones overworked and under-helped, prime targets for something “strange and nefarious.” MCUSA’s dismissal—“they likely only got scared by new magical powers, ran away, they’ll turn up eventually”—pushed Greytwig to take it before the international representatives of BAST. It had hit every wizarding newspaper in the western hemisphere by the next morning. Zatana had been called in late, as a favor: Greytwig was a graduate of Ashbone, was only a year or two above Cordelia, and knew well her brilliant Healer daughter.

Most experts had settled upon the malfunctioning archives theory, but a few—like Regulu’s sister-in-law Evangeline—had different theories. Cold dread creeped through his veins when he listened to Evangeline mutter of muggle cases, of little girls taken deliberately because of the fact that no one would care because of their skin tone, or because of their economic status, or both. He deliberately did not mention that the first sign of the Dark Lord’s influence had been muggleborn students’ records changing or disappearing ourtight. _He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s_ dead, he told himself, throwing himself into teaching and pushing away thoughts wondering if his class size was slightly smaller than in previous years.

“My findings on how to alter the archive are short,” Zatana continued. “Only an hour, at most. Go grab lunch for us from one of the Spector’s Alley places?”

Regulus groaned. “That’s across the river,” he mock-whined. “Nearly all the way across the city!”

“And they have the best fish,” she insisted. She wound her arms around his neck, and gave him a peck on the lips, and pulled back barely a milimeter. “Love you.”

Regulus hummed. “No you don’t,” he quipped, grinning, and kissed her deeply.

They stood, swaying on the building’s steps, for a long moment, only separating when Regulus’ lungs burned. “Go,” Zatana rasped. “Before you make me late.”

“Oh it’d be _my_ fault?” he demanded.

“ _Yes_ ,” Zatana said, smacking him lightly on the chest with her clutch. He laughed, stumbling down a few steps in mock injury. “Now _go_.”

A jaunty salute, and he finally left. The streets of the Etyrip wizarding district were packed that morning, and he had to actually pay attention to avoid being mowed over. Despite not being the actual capitol—that remained in New York, a rare instance of wix and muggles not remaining in harmony—the two DC wizarding districts were massive, sprawling things. One—with all the city’s international and authoritative buildings—sat on a hidden island in the river behind the captiol. Regulus walked right up to the shore of it, and suddenly found himself in the heart of Muggle DC, right at one of their “crosswalks.” It was a typical design for wizarding and muggle borders, but it made him smile nonetheless.

The district’s brother, Specter’s Alley, was the truly spectacular one in design. Once one was at the right crosswalk, to get in, one had to let themselves—sink, as it were. Regulus tried to keep his pace at a walk, but a giddy smile pressed at his lips, and he broke out into a light jog when he saw the stoplight that was painted bright blue. The crosswalk was empty save for one young wizard, sitting on the curb and flipping through a muggle magazine, bored. The breathless feeling of the very gravity shifting around him was familiar, and strange, and as close to flying as Regulus got these days. He closed his eyes when he got to the middle of the sidewalk, and let it happen.

Spector’s Alley existed _under_ the rest of the city, bigger by far than Ministry building in London Regulus remembered, extending miles and miles below ground and squeezed under the cracks of the Smithsonian Museum’s foundations with the aid of magic, sprawling equally wide in all directions. Buildings grew from the ceiling, from the upper floors, from the sides of artful columns carved from stalagtites. Massive walkways imitated the highways above them, and entire families had room to fly all around the space in between. The entire thing was lit by expertly crafted spells in the lowmost floor, imitating the sun above in brightness and hue, and mini globes floated alongside those flying in the air. It was breathtaking in a way few magical things had been since Regulus was a boy. He opened his eyes to see it—

And frowned, hand automatically dropping to grab his wand in it’s thigh holster.

He was the only one on a very narrow walkway, and could only see ten meters in any direction. Empty blackness surround him from there, and silence pressed down on his eardrums. “Hello?” he called carefully.

“You are Bennett de Bleu?” a voice came. It was strangely distorted, and deep in an unnatural way, and Regulus couldn’t think of what the undertone reminded him of, panic lancing up his spine and scrambling his brain. His wand was up and extended in an instant, though there was virtually nothing to point it at.

“Who’s asking,” he demanded flatly, turning in a slow circle.

“An interested party,” the voice replied. “You are the husband of the Healer Zatana de Bleu?”

Regulus snarled. “What have you done with her?” he demanded. He thought back to the boy on the crosswalk, and silently cursed. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ , he reprimaded himself. There was no way the crosswalk wouldn’t have been packed with wizards at this time of day. The boy was obviously a lookout, and Regulus was out of practice enough that he’d walked right into an obvious trap.

“Your wife is fine,” the voice said. Regulus kept turning. The voice seemed to be coming from several different directions, but there were directions it was coming louder from. If he could just pinpoint… “I care more about you, Mister de Bleu. You are married to a well known Healer, and your in-laws are all well known politicians. Their records are clear and easy to find: their birth, their accomplishments, your wife and mother’s dedication to the betternment of those under their care. It is even very easy to follow your wife’s latest job. She is very vocal in some very interesting places. It is easy to know that she is dedicated to getting to the bottom of the case. Unfortunately she is too public to threaten directly. You, however—there’s nothing on you. Tell, me, Mister de Bleu—”

“ _Impedimenta_!” Regulus shouted, aiming a little to the left of the walkway in front of him. The spell connected with a strangely high-pitched yelp, and the darkness receded a couple meters more. Regulus’ breath caught. Where the black had been previously lay a girl, downed by his spell. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven, though he couldn’t really tell—the blue and gray sweatshirt she was wearing went down to her knees, and her sneakers nearly hung off her feet, making her look younger. Her hair was pulled back into two uneven puffballs, and a single fresh cut marred brown skin. The edges of her hair stuck up in little tufts, and a memory briefly but insistently imposed itself over his eyes.

 _“Will you stand_ still _?” Zatana demanded. Evangeline squirmed under her sister’s hands, acting as if she were the younger one. They were both in matching silver strapless dresses, though the shorter, more muscular woman looked infinitely more uncomfortable in hers. Regulus stood to the side, slowly doing up his cufflinks and watching the two sisters in amusement._

_“Dunno know what you want from me,” Evangeline grumbled, folding her arms and making her biceps bulge. “You told me my braids looked good!”_

_“They looked good two_ weeks _ago, Evie,” Zatana said in exasperation, working with her wand and a tiny comb in tandem to work the tiny tufts of hair not caught by her sister’s braids. She was combing them and smoothing them into neat swirls, dying the ends a silver to match their dresses. “Honestly, it’s Ashanti’s_ wedding _day, the least you could do is comb your baby hairs—”_

Regulus blinked, and then startled into action. He fell to his knees beside the girl, turning her onto her side to get a better look at her cut. He winced. “ _Episkey_.” The wound closed, but a light line remained. He’d never been good at healing; it wasn’t something emphasized in his house. “ _Finite incantatum._ ”

The girl woke up with a gasp, and scrambled away from him and to her feet. Her hands were in front of her in tiny fists, and he held his hands up in what he hoped was a placating way. Glancing around, his anger came back.

“Show yourself,” he shouted. “It’s a coward’s way to use a child for your dirty work! Show yourself and demand your questions face-to-face!”

“There ain’t nobody else!” the girl shouted over him. Regulus turned back to her.

“You don’t have to defend whoever’s forcing you,” he told her. “I can help—”

“Are all magic people idiots?” she demanded. “You seemed alright, but I don’t know. You know once you figure out there was magic, it wasn’t hard to figure out some spells and shit. All the other kids at Mrs. Pan’s are super jealous, though. Ain’t nobody else in my year got magic.” She puffed out her chest in pride, then held a wand up to her throat. A dumbfounded Regulus realized what the undertone of the voice had reminded him of—Sirius, age thirteen, with a spell to make his newly breaking voice ‘deep and manly.’ (Regulus had privately thought he’d sounded like a theater villain.) “ _I am the night_ ,” the girl said, and then took the wand away from her throat. “Sorry about all the secrecy and Darth Vader shit. Had to know you weren’t one of them.”

“One of who?” Regulus demanded, eyeing carefully an apparently extremely powerful witch.

The girl blinked. “Ain’t that what your wife was going in to discuss?” she asked. “It’s hard to keep up with y’all’s news and shit when I gotta sneak around, but I thought at least some people realized—really? No one?” Her face looked desperate, and then it hardened when Regulus only continued to look confused. “Fuck. Even when we got magic…”

“Realized _what_?” Regulus demanded. “What’s your name?”

“Name’s Ivy,” the girl spit out. “And _realized_ that somebody was snatching up black kids with magic, dumbass!”


	3. Differentia Virium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ivy!! Sirius!! :D

The noise of the muggle chopper drowned out all thought, and the wind from it’s blades obscured nearly all vision. The hills were a patchwork of different greens—fields, forests, and farms—cut through by one shining, twisting line of blue. Cottages and old factories dotted the countryside, looking older and older the further the chopper strayed from muggle paths. The ground rippled, tossing and turning as it struggled to throw out the nonmagical thing in it’s midst.

“Are you sure there’s a base near here, ma’am?” the military pilot shouted back—the first thing he’d said for four hours.

Beside Ivy, Auror Ceasar smirked. “Yes, sir,” she answered, and held up her wallet; it was empty, of course, but would read as a federal badge to any muggle, and quite a few wizards, at first glance. The Auror wore a dark suit and left the scar on her neck, a mottled and raised starburst, without a glamour to enhance the look. Ivy nearly rolled her eyes at how cheap the trick was. “CIA only—top secret. Count yourself lucky.”

The pilot nodded, and turned back to the windshield. Ivy struggled to stop her foot bouncing on the deck of the craft—Ceasar and the pilot were seasoned in their respective fields, and she didn’t need to look like more of a kid than she already did.

Ceasar leaned over. “You can relax,” she muttered in Ivy’s ear. “I just got word—he’s up and moving. He’ll be back to his annoying self by the end of the week, likely.”

Ivy nodded. At that moment, though, the pilot swore loudly as his controls lit up and alarms blared. Several massive estates jumped into existence directly in their path. “What the goddamn _hell_ —”

Ceasar calmly got to her feet, steady and tall as the chopper nearly pitched Ivy into the recently vacated seat. Her wand seemed to melt into it’s full form in her hand, and Ceasar dug it into the back of the pilot’s neck. “As I said,” she began, and he froze. “Top secret. Thank you, Airman, for your impeccable service.” There was no verbal spell, but the flash of blue from the obliviation briefly took the rest of Ivy’s sight. She groaned, and blinked to clear the spots from her vision. Ceasar was staring back at her when they lifted. “Welcome back, Miss de Bleu.”

 

The helicopter didn’t even manage to touch down properly before Ivy was throwing herself out of it, bounding across the Jackie Thorne Home’s landing pad and launching herself into her mother’s arms. Zatana de Bleu was shorter than Ivy by nearly a foot, but took her weight easy as she was pulled into a bone-crushing hug.

“Oh, sweetheart, shush, sh-sh-shhh, he’s okay, he’s okay…” Ivy hiccuped, and she realized she was crying. Her face burned, but even the knowledge that Auror Ceasar was right behind her and could see all of this didn’t stem the flow of tears. She burrowed further into her mother’s neck and hair—unlike usual, all of its length was loose and barely dried, falling down her back in a heavy cloud. _Sage_ , Ivy thought, identifying the smell under Zatana’s jaw. _Must have been stress cooking_. Her stomach growled.

Zatana pulled back.

Ivy coughed, scrubbing at her cheeks roughly with one hand. “Sup, Zee?”

Zatana’s lips jerked into an involuntary smile, and she leaned around Ivy to mouth ‘ _thank you_ ’ at Ceasar.

“I’ll head out, then,” the Auror shouted. Ivy didn’t turn to see if she was leaving. Zatana turned and pulled her to the door on the roof of the building. The sound cut completely as the door closed behind them, and they had a moment in full darkness and true weightlessness before their feet landed gently, and the space lit as it always did. Ivy of eight years ago had gaped openly at the white-blue lights running through all the corners of a functionally massive warehouse of a space, housing everything from old World War planes to gifts of dragon’s hies and bones. Now, she leaned into Zatana as they walked quickly through the middle lane of the hall, their steps leaving glowing footprints on the floor.

As they got closer, the opposite wall glowed, and the words _Differentia Virium_ wrote themselves out near the ceiling. _Forces. Strength in Difference_. The de Bleu’s motto, and something Ivy had taken a while to get that they actually meant: it didn’t matter that she was nothing like the rest, she made them stronger either way. From high on the walls, portraits of de Bleus pasts peered down at Ivy—she’d never spent much time in here, and no extended family knew much of her.

“So how was your trip?” Zatana asked when they were nearly to the other end of the room.

Ivy shrugged. “Master Breaker was a hack,” she muttered.

Zatana rolled her eyes. “Everyone is a hack, compared to you,” she responded. Ivy shrugged again, but didn’t deny it. “Did you have fun, at least? Greytwig told me you stopped by briefly to chat, and doesn’t that one muggle singer you like live near there? The pretty girl with ‘those eyes.’” Her mother’s own eyes sparkled.

Ivy rolled her eyes. “I have better things to do than stalking celebrities,” she told her mother. Zatana snorted. Ivy firmly did not mention that said singer had been halfway around the world on tour when Ivy had crashed in a hotel in New York, and thus was not within easy stalking distance. “How’s he doing? For real?”

They stopped before a door at the end of the hall; behind it was functionally a meeting room, but hadn’t been used in years, and from the stories Ivy’d been told, it had been mostly used for hide-and-seek or a place to get away and think by her and her sisters. Zatana sighed. “Physically, he’s fine, but we have…a few things to tell you.” She pushed open the door. Ivy’s stomach dropped, but she didn’t hesitate as she followed Zatana through it.

The tension disappeared from the room as Ivy spotted the man sitting on the couch. For the second time in as many hours, she ran. “Dad!” Regulus Black heaved himself to his feet with a rarely-used cane, dropping it so he could catch his daughter in his arm. They leaned on each other, swaying gently in nonexistent wind.

Regulus kissed her temple as he pulled back. “My darling little flower,” he muttered, his hand on her shoulder.

“Why’d you collapse?” she demanded. “Ceasar wouldn’t tell me nothin’, and you and mom weren’t answering, and there was _guards_ takin’ me back here, dad, was it an attack?”

Ivy saw Regulus look over her shoulder, and knew he and her mother were having a silent conversation. He guided her over to the couch he’d been on, away from the desk that dominated the room, and sat them both down. Zatana sat on her other side

“You know—” Regulus started, then began again. “You know…my past. You know what I was a part of.”

“How he got his injuries,” Zatana interjected, and Regulus nodded. Ivy did know, though not well—England, for all magic’s ease with traveling long distances quickly, seemed still like such a far off and nebulous concept, and even more so when their Wizarding War was brought into it. The most it affected her was that her dad had an accent, and he refused to go in the pool or the ocean on family vacations.

“You were a ‘Death Eater,’” she said slowly. “But you left, because you thought what they were doing to muggles was disgusting—awful. You had to get a new identity, because there were still Death Eaters out there the Ministry of Magic didn’t know about, who’d kill you if they knew you were alive.” She blinked. “Did they find you? Dad, were they the ones poisoning you magic?!”

“Sort of,” Regulus said evasively. “And that’s not the only reason I left. Zee?”

Metal clinked behind Ivy, and she turned to see her mother pulling out an old necklace. The thing was warped, and shattered, and rusted, and looked wrong against the well-pressed lines of her mother’s robes. It would have been ugly even when it was pristine—it was a gaudy thing, big and gold and with a snake on one of the faces. For some reason, Ivy felt like puking when she looked at it, and her mind felt fuzzy and full of tar.

“What is that?” she asked warily.

“Until about twenty years ago, it was a vessel of the Dark Lord’s soul,” Regulus stated matter-of-fact, and Ivy instinctively jerked away from it.

“It’s not—?”

“I killed it,” he assured her, and Ivy saw her parents eyes meet again. “ _We_ killed it. It can’t hurt you.”

“Why do you still have it, then?” Ivy demanded.

Regulus shrugged, but he looked vaguely guilty. “Proof. Solid proof that I’d done something, and that the Dark Lord couldn’t come back. This—this vessel was what tethered him to earth, and to his supposed immortality. With the necklace gone, someone would be able to truly kill him.”

“Or so we thought,” Zatana said.

“What do you mean?” Ivy asked, voice quivering. She sounded like a child, and she hated it.

“He’s back,” Regulus said simply. “He’s back, and had been siphoning off his follower’s powers for the past year to be able to endure whatever ritual he’s done to return. That was why I was so sick—there were still a few uncaught strands of him clinging to me where the full connection of the Dark Mark was.”

“What…so, what?” Ivy asked. “He’s back; he can’t know you’re here. Or can he? Is that why you called me back, so we could go into hiding?”

“Sort of,” Regulus said again. “It was mostly panic; you both have no experience with what he’s capable of—” Zatana huffed on Ivy’s other side. “— _in person_ , you don’t, but you have to grasp—he is incredibly powerful, and incredibly evil. I needed to know you were safe. Ivy, I need to know you’re safe, in the coming months.”

Ivy nodded easily. “Yeah, sure,” she answered. “No wandering off for cool finds, stay with the family, put up with some more guards, right? Are any of your crew comin’ to hide out with us, dad?”

“They might…to stay with _you_.”

Ivy blinked.

Turned to her mother.

Zatana’s eyes wavered in their hold of her own. She turned back to her dad. “No,” she said simply. Zatana snorted behind her. “No, no _fucking_ way.”

“Ivy—”

“You ain’t goin’ back there!” She shot up from her seat in between her parents. “Neither of you! You ain’t! You nearly ain’t make it to us the first time, no way in hell—”

“I’m the only one who knows how to do this!” he pleaded.

“Then tell someone else!” Ivy shouted. Her heart was pounding in her ears. Her family, her only dad…

“Ivy,” he said. He used the couch arm to push himself to his feet. “There cannot be more people who know of this—there’s already the risk that the Dark Lord has made countless more, and I don’t even know where he might have hidden them. If I involve anyone else, there’s the chance that he hears of this search, and he hides them further—puts even more protections around them. Your mother already has experience helping me, and Ashanti has access to resources in Europe that I don’t, but between us we cover almost everything. I _need_ to be the one to do this.” He cupped her cheek. “And I need to know you’re safe while we do it. I know you have experience with the underworld, with men more powerful than anything you can imagine, and with beating them. This is an entirely different beast, though. Will you _please_ stay here? Stay safe?”

Ivy took a deep breath. Looked in her dad’s eyes. And lied. “Yes, sir.”

***

**16 Years Ago**

Bellatrix was the last to arrive.

 _Naturally_ , thought Narcissa, suppressing a smirk. She felt Andy tense beside her.

“Scared of me, Andy?” Bella asked with a smirk, sinking into the chair at the head of the Malfoy dining room. “Don’t worry; I haven’t come to fight today.”

Narcissa heard Sirius snort, from his corner closest to the kitchen’s entrance. “Not like you’d win, if you did,” he retorted. “Two against two, and we all learned the same tricks.”

Bella sneered. “Don’t be so sure,” she snarled, sitting up straight and glaring at their cousin. “It’s been very informative, learning from—”

“Enough,” Narcissa said. “Both of you. We’re here for family, and nothing will be gained by arguing over petty old squabbles.”

“Yeah, people’s lives are _very_ petty,” Sirius muttered, and she forced herself not to respond. Muggle’s lives _were_ petty, and those fighting for them were being foolish.

“I agree with Narcissa,” Andy spoke up for the first time. Narcissa smiled at her, but her sister wouldn’t meet her eyes. _Fine_ , Narcissa thought. Andy’s ‘marriage’ was still more important than her family. Once the war was over, Andy would come to her senses, and Narcissa would have her sister back; she was sure of it. “We need to focus; Sirius, from what our letters said, you were the last one to have contact with Regulus. You’re sure he didn’t give any hints to where he could be now?”

“Yes!” Sirius burst out, leaning on the table and folding his hands together under his chin. “I’ve gone over our last conversation a thousand times already, and there’s nothing _there_!”

“You’re sure?” Narcissa asked.

“No, I’ve been hiding possible clues as to where my baby brother disappeared just to spite you,” Sirius said, and then continued before anyone could retort. “It was a fight, like usual. He ended up ranting about his loyalty to your lot. ‘Family means protecting those you love, even when they don’t understand or would try to stop you.’ Sounded like something mother would say, when she was all there upstairs.”

They all fell silence. Minutes ticked by.

“Well,” Narcissa finally said. “No matter. Bella, the book.” Bella glared one last time at both Sirius, then Andy, before reaching down into the bag beside her and heaving out a massive tome. She slammed it on the desk, and Narcissa struggled not to choke on the dust kicked up from it’s pages. The edges of it’s papers were cracked, and half of them were sliding out of the binding. The leather of the cover was died a dark red.

“The Wizarding Arcane: an Anthology,” Sirius read slowly. “This dark magic, then?”

Bella giggled, and said in a high-pitched voice, twisting the ‘r’s and ‘l’s into ‘w’s: “Scared of a little dark magic, Siri?”

Sirius growled. Narcissa interjected: “The only reason it’s Dark is because of the blood rituals involved, but the giving of blood must be consensual here.”

“Consensual on the part of those tracking, you mean,” Andy muttered, but continued at normal volume when she noticed Narcissa’s glare: “Nothing in the spell needs the person hidden’s consent, and it was mostly used for finding traitors and dissenters back when the muggle king still believed in magic.”

“Regulus,” Narcissa began in a low, cold voice, “has been missing for a _month_ , Andromeda! None of our connections panned out—he’s just disappeared into thin air! You cannot _seriously_ be splitting hairs over this when he could be in danger or—!” She cut herself off before she could say what the worst possibility was, though they’d all thought of it.

“Just keeping you honest, Cissy,” Andy answered, though her shoulders were hunched in contrition. “Bella, what do we need to do?”

Bella wordlessly got to her feet, took out a knife from the holster under her breast, and flipped the book open with a flourish. “Cut your palms and put them in my hand, and go from here.” She tapped the blade against the beginning of a passage on the right page, then brought the knife to her right hand and sliced open the palm. She held the knife out to Narcissa, but looked at each of them in turn. “Focus on Regulus.” Narcissa took a deep breath, and took the knife from her, and copied her oldest sister. A yelp of pain nearly passed her lips before she bit her tongue. The knife was passed to Andy without any expression on her face. Sirius was the last, and as one, they placed their hands in Bella’s, joined over the spine of the book.

“Quod reperio absentis,

Invenient vinculum,

Respice in claustra,

Per bella quaerere…”

On the chanting went, for a minute, for an hour, for a day—Narcissa couldn’t be sure. The magic in the room made her head fuzzy and her heart thrum. She felt like she was going to be sick; she felt like she could fight an army single-handedly. The room blurred, and her senses dulled. The floor spun, and Narcissa’s knees felt weak. Time turned to liquid, and she felt like she was floating. A smile came to her face. _This is…_ , she thought, sluggishly searching her brain for words other than what was on the page. _This is_ —

A spear of ice drove into her spine. She screamed, jerking her hand out of Bella’s, barely aware of the other’s matching yells of agony. The room snapped back to focus—her on her knees, barely stopping herself from vomiting. Sirius had no such compunctions, losing the contents of his stomach into a four-hundred year old vase. She couldn’t find the energy to reprimand him.

“What,” Andy panted, “in the name of Salazar…was… _that_?”

Bella was staring blankly at the book. Her eyes were bright, and her bottom lip was trembling. “The spell failed.”

“Eh?” Sirius asked, stumbling over to them and collapsing. “W’s tha’ mean?”

“It failed,” Bella repeated, and with horrible certainty, Narcissa knew what she was trying to say.

“ _No_ ,” she choked out.

“Cissy, I…” Bella glanced at her, guilt starting to cloud her vision.

“No,” Narcissa repeated. “We must have done something wrong. We need to do it again. There’s no reason—”

“There is!” Bella shouted. “There is a reason for the spell to fail, Cissy! I…I’m sorry. Reggie…He’s dead.”

***

“So, that could have gone better.”

Sirius barely flinched at Remus’ voice, focusing instead on the dust motes floating above his head. His friend’s apartment was tiny (bigger than the one he got just out of school though, righteously indignant and insistent that he pay for himself—), but he was abysmal at keeping it more than barely presentable. Dust was on least half the surfaces, the walls were nearly bare, and when Sirius had first arrived, he’d had to replace at least two lights. His friend, the man he’d loved since seventh year, had been quietly suffering the entire time Sirius had been in Azkaban—and there was nothing Sirius could do about it now, fugitive that he was. He couldn't even find the energy to help with the dusting, half the time.

Remus sighed when he got no response. “I understand,” he started carefully. “I think that Dumbledore springing that request on you in front of everyone, especially only ten minutes after some of them found out your were innocent, was—”

“He had no right!” Sirius shouted, bursting to his feet. “No right at all!”

“I know!” Remus snapped, clearly struggling not to match his friend’s volume. “Trust me, I know just how out of line Dumbledore is with this, but…”

“You can’t honestly be considering this,” Sirius said flatly.

“He has a point, Padfoot!” And here Remus starts to pace, and Sirius knows he will lose. His shoulders slumped. “Just within the month you’ve been here, I’ve been tailed five times, twice in the past twenty-four hours. Two people I’m almost certain were ministry workers in disguise questioned me about the amount of groceries I was getting—in a _muggle_ shop! I love you as my own brother, but this isn’t sustainable.”

Remus was a good man, and wouldn’t mention the other problems with having Sirius as a roommate: the heightened temper, the cycles of him overeating and then eating barely anything for days…

The nightmares.

He’d come out of Azkaban wrong, he knew that. He never used to be this paranoid, this jumpy, this hard of a person. The dementors had taken something, a something he couldn’t even identify, but he knew he wouldn’t get it back. The Padfoot that had been Moony’s best friend in school, the one that had tentatively regained his trust after sixth year, the one who’d joined the order with him, was gone. Living together had made that abundantly clear.

“You’re right,” Sirius grunted out. Remus blinked, and Sirius hated that he knew why: no argument they’d had since Sirius had been here had lasted less than an hour. “Dumbledore's right,” he continued, and Remus’ jaw actually dropped. “Grimmauld Place has layers upon layers of warding gone back through the eighteenth century, and the foundation’s stones have been imbued hauled from house to house for longer than that. There’s no safer place in the country. 'Sides Hogwarts, of course. It’s objectively the best place for the Order to meet, since the War is starting again.” The last he said with a smile, though Lupin frowned at it.

“You don’t have to do this, Sirius,” Remus said, stepping closer. A far cry from his earlier tune. “There are other—”

“Not as good.” Sirius shrugged. “Not as easily accessible.”

Remus stepped so he was within arm’s reach, hands coming up to grip Sirius’ shoulders. “Look at me,” he murmured. Sirius scowled, but slowly looked. Remus was staring directly into his eyes, and Sirius fancied he could see glints of gold in the light brown. “I'll be with you—every— _single_ —day that I can. You will _not_ be alone in that house, and your mother’s ghost can't hurt you.”

Sirius nodded, head jerking in quick, unnatural moves, and finally collapsed Lupin’s arms, which caught him in a bone-crushing hug. Inexplicably, Remus Lupin still smelled the same as he always had, and the scent felt like a home he’d never had. _My Moony_ , Sirius thought, hugging him tighter. _Mine_.


	4. Alliances

_DE BLEU TAKING SABBATICAL!_

_For the first time in ten years the Head Healer at the Bon Fortune Hospital, Zatana de Bleu, is taking a sabbatical. The healer rocketed to national attention eight years ago, with her and her family_ _s work taking down the Richton Ring. The trafficking ring that targeting black muggleborn wix led to her later decision to adopt one of the victims with husband Bennett de Bleu. Not much is known of their part of the family, though the husband is an English wizard—the son of bowtruckle farmers, who immigrated just before the end of the War with Lord Voldemort (known colloquially as “You-Know-Who”)._

_The Healer and her husband are taking that off time to move to that very same country, saying they would be there_ _“at least a year”  for their vacation when reporters reached out for comment. A year, huh? Given what we know—of her mother and sister, a MCUSA senator and runes consultant, respectively, that of their mothers before them, and the family’s emphasis on_ family— _insiders say it was a shock when her and her husband decided to take a child as their ward instead of having a child naturally. With a career now well-secured and ward nearing adulthood, could this time off be a cover for the youngest child in one of wizarding America_ _’s favorite families to finally have a child?_

_Zatana de Bleu is a seasoned healer with a storied career, making a name for herself in the world of natural philosophy with her thesis on magical curse scars, and how to reconnect nerves and magical veins through_ _…_

“Jesus hell.”

The small offshoot of Knockturn Alley was empty, given that it was four in the morning. A sharp yowl a few blocks away made Zatana shrink closer into Regulus’ back. They were on the porch of a small shop, a ramshackle wooden thing crammed between two stone buildings. The Japanese woman in front of them was staring at Regulus in shock, hastening to outrage.

“You—you—!” she spluttered, tensing like she was going to throw a punch.

“Anna—” Regulus began, but was cut off by the woman’s arm shooting out and grabbing him by his collar, hauling him bodily over the threshold. He yelped, but let himself be dragged. Zatana decided to follow their retreating, stumbling form despite any misgivings. The building was, of course, bigger on the inside. The dark and winding hall twisted off at least twice the length of the alleyway the building was in before turning and cutting completely out of sight.

Anna yanked Regulus through a doorway just before the bend, using her hold and their momentum to toss him into a rickety chair. Her wand was out in another instant. Zatana reached for her own, but relaxed when, voice cracking, the woman shouted, “We thought you were dead, you pompous ass!”

“Anna, I can explain, it was to keep you all safe—”

“We _mourned_ you!” Anna shouted. “Elliot couldn’t stop crying for _weeks_ , and we couldn't even hold a funeral for you! We’ve been sick wondering how you suffered as you died, where you went, and you have the gall to just _show up_ randomly twenty years later—”

“Something’s happened,” Regulus cut over her. Anna blinked.

“Well,” she finally said. “Tell me everything, then.”

 

“I remember these.”

A week after Voldemort’s return, Zatana wandered into her daughter’s bedroom. She fingered the tiny, tarnished ballet slippers tied to the desk, swinging beneath a much more recent dance trophy. Ivy glanced up from the potioneer’s journal she was reading. Zatana continued. “From the novelty box I won for you at the arcade, after we first met. I didn’t know you kept it.”

Ivy shrugged. “I don’t bring it out much, but seeing as what’s about to happen, I wanted a reminder of…”

“Better times,” Zatana finished. Her eyes were unusually bright. Ivy felt vaguely guilty for using the slippers, but she knew she was petty and cruel when cornered. Her parents would be suspicious if she didn’t react like that when they’d ‘trapped’ her like this. They hadn’t wanted to let her help in the disaster that had first brought them together either; she just had to prove that she could help more than hinder.

“Mom,” Ivy deliberately pitched her voice differently, meeker and more wobbly. Her father had just nearly died, and not all of it was an act. “Why are you going along with this? I know you’d want to protect dad, but—” It also helped that she was genuinely stumped on this front.

Zatana sighed, walking over to the bed and sitting beside Ivy. “You know the motto of Ashbone? How we strive to accept every witch descended from our founders, whether biologically, culturally, or spiritually?” Ivy nodded. Zatana pulled her towards her breastbone, rubbing her back. “Nine years before the wards grabbed onto your father, the board of the school made a decision. We would not accept anyone from the British Isles until the end of their war. They were scared. They wanted…nothing to do with the war, no reason for this Dark Lord to turn his eye towards a different set of Isles.”

Ivy jerked out of her mother’s grip. “What?” she demanded. “But those witches deserved to be at—”

“Yes,” Zatana agreed. “They did. And they died because the board was filled with cowards. Angelica Tufts and Riva Salomon are two who should have been deep in their masteries at Ashbone in the middle of the school year, but instead turned up dead with Dark Marks floating above their bodies. I would not have that happen again, if I can prevent it.” Ivy shifted guiltily, ducking back into the circle of her mother’s arms.

“You’re including yourself in that, right?” she asked, partly to distract herself, and partly because—well, _because_.

Zatana snorted. “Of course, little flower,” she muttered. She kissed the top of her head, and then got to her feet. “Stay safe. We will talk to you as soon as we have gotten to a secure location.”

 

Zatana leaned against the balcony. Anna had burst into tears again after the story, catching Regulus in a hug that was seemed more punishment than happiness. She was finally on board, though, and offered to make them dinner. Zatana had accepted before Regulus could bluster that they were fine—she was hungry, dammit. The conversation had flowed easily, with nearly twenty years of catching up to do—apparently Elliot and someone named Sugar Cain had gotten married—but the more they talked, the more it became obvious that the two were talking around something. Zatana couldn’t help but think it was because of her presence. When Anna had brought out cupcakes, she’d made up something about being stuffed and needing air, and left them to whatever catharsis was necessary.

She felt a presence creep up behind her, but relaxed when a lone arm wound around her waist. “Are you alright?” Regulus muttered into her hair.

She nodded. “Did you and Anna work out whatever you needed to?” Regulus tensed against her back. Zatana turned to see his face frozen in confused shock. “You know whatever it is, I won’t hold it against you. If it’s something that’s a result of things you did as a Death Eater—”

Regulus shook himself. “No,” he said. “No, nothing like that, I just…I forget, how cunning you can be when you want to be.”

“I _have_ to be, to put up with you,” she said, and he snorted.

“It’s nothing…bad,” he reiterated. His teeth caught his lip, tugging so the seems of his facial scars to the right of his mouth stood in sharp contrast. “Do you remember me telling you I had been with men?” She nodded. “Do remember everyone that helped me, while I tried to undo some of the damage the Dark Lord had done? Sugar Cain, Elliot, Anna…and Nathan?”

“Nathan?” Zatana blinked. “The muggle boy? He was the one you found, that was the son of one of the kid’s your Lord cursed in his youth, the one cursed to die…” It finally clicked. “Oh. Oh, darling, I’m so sorry.” She moved closer into him, engulfing him in a tight hug as he curled around her. His body started to shake.

“Five…five years in the ground,” Regulus gasped out. “For him _and_ his father. Managed to have a good run, despite everything. Anna said he made a name for himself in muggle politics, helping…h-helping men like him. Like us.” Zatana rubbed the small of his back. Regulus, by his nature, was not very outwardly emotive, but when he was like this—

She felt him choke on a full body sob, and pulled them down into a shaking heap on the stone floor of the balcony. They stayed there for an eternity and no time at all, and when Regulus pulled back his face was clear, despite red-rimmed eyes.

Zatana frowned. “Whatever it is, it can wait until morning,” she stated firmly. “We, and you especially, need sleep.”

“We can’t stay here,” Regulus said. “Anna has said she wants to help, but there aren’t appropriate wards on her house yet. If we approached, say, my cousin Andromeda—”

“Who is likely asleep at this time!” Zatana hissed. “And would not appreciate being woken up to revelations of this stature!”

“Her house is warded to the gills, though!” her husband protested. “It has to be, considering who she married and who she’s related to!”

“We can survive ‘in the open’ for one night,” Zatana insisted. “Regulus, I mean it. No nasty surprises for your cousin until at _least_ after breakfast. _Tomorrow_.”

 

The doorbell jerked Andromeda out of sleep. It wasn’t a loud thing; during the War, she’d just become a light sleeper. Guilt at the target she’d painted on her whole family’s back would do that to anyone, she thought, and worse. It was lucky—probably—that the only scar she had was a bit of insomnia.

Ted snored on beside her, and when she eased out of bed, simply flopped over and and dragged her pillow to his chest. She smiled. The doorbell rang again, and that smile morphed into a frown. Her robe found it’s way to her shoulders, and her wand to her hand, and she carefully crept down the stairs. The clock on the living room wall said it was past two in the morning. Andromeda scowled.

She tied her robe tighter around herself and marched toward the door, all the while muttering to herself, “Absolutely no decency, who calls past midnight, who calls past _five_ , honestly, there’s no reason to…” Wand up, she yanked the door open. “Alright, who are you, what do you want?” she demanded.

The girl on her front porch was Hogwarts age—nowhere past fifteen or sixteen, if she had to guess—with deep brown skin and eye-catching hair tied off in two half-buns by silver ribbon. She grinned easily, thumbs sunk in her back pocket, and drawled, “Hey, auntie.”

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a review if you made it this far!


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